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Knicks sign C Timofey Mozgov to 3 year/$9.7MM Deal

Russian center Timofey Mozgov will sign a three year, 9.7 million dollar contract with the New York Knicks. Knicks will pay Khimki 500k USD.

Mozgov has been rated DraftExpress' #1 International Free Agent prospect for the past two years. Big, strong athletic center w/nice upside.

Hmm.. gonna find out more about him before I comment.

Here's a profile I found:

The athletic 7-1 center had an outstanding campaign under David Blatt with the Russian national team in the European Championships in Poland this summer, averaging 11 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in 23 minutes per game, helping his team far exceed expectations despite missing most of their big name players. He seems to be making big strides in his game year after year and is clearly not a finished product at this point. With his outstanding physical attributes and especially the way he runs the floor, it not out of the question that he could be a much better fit for the more up and down style of play that is found in the NBA than he is for Europe.

Dunno what this guy is like but we seem to be adding players where we don't really need them. I would have preferred to see Barron signed considering his great end to the season PLUS keeping him away from the Heat would be very useful considering they need a young 7 footer.

... talking about an incredibly raw 7-footer with a WWF wrester’s body and intriguing athleticism for a player his size.

From DraftExpress.com [Only registered and activated users can see links. ][Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

It’s not hard to see what makes Mozgov unique on first glance. He is a true 7-footer who is built like a house, with long arms, and outstanding strength and athleticism. Imagine a bulkier [Only registered and activated users can see links. ], or a Russian version of [Only registered and activated users can see links. ].

Mozgov is an extremely limited offensive player, who is mostly relegated to catching and finishing around the basket, and making his presence felt on the offensive glass. He is an absolute force as an offensive rebounder in fact, leading the EuroCup [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] per-minute. He loves to set bruising screens and then roll to the basket for an empathic alley-oop lob, and does a great job throwing his weight around in the paint and moving opposing centers around. His toughness and activity level are both top-notch, and help make up for some of the many shortcomings that he suffers from at this point.

Despite being a tremendous finisher around the basket, Mozgov possesses little in the ways of touch, post-moves, dribbling ability, footwork or any of the other skill-based attributes that most big men need in order to be effective at the highest level of competition. He’s not terribly coordinated, often looking like a bull in a china shop trying to execute advanced moves, thus being fairly turnover prone. While he gets to the free throw line at a solid rate, he only converts around 50% of his attempts, and is obviously incredibly limited when asked to do anything offensively outside of the paint. No one is going to confuse his passing ability or basketball IQ with that of [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] anytime soon.

Defensively, Mozgov is a major presence, as he’s extremely difficult to post up on the block and has all the size, length and athleticism needed to swallow up opposing centers whole, and then grab the ensuing rebound for good measure. He blocks one shot for every 9 minutes he’s on the floor, and grabs a rebound every 3 minutes, which obviously makes him one of the more productive players you’ll find at his position in Europe. He brings very good intensity to this end of the floor, and has the added bonus of being agile enough to step out and hedge screens, showing very nice agility in the process. Mozgov still has a ways to go in terms of improving his fundamentals and all-around court awareness—he still makes too many rookie mistakes to be trusted by most top-level coaches. He’s also fairly foul prone and has a tendency to bite on pump-fakes, being a bit naïve as you might expect from a player with little experience.

All in all, Mozgov looks like a very interesting prospect that teams would do well to keep tabs on, as you just don’t find many players with his combination of size, strength, athleticism and intensity. Considering how much he’s improved over the past year, and the fact that he’s only 22 years old, there is no telling where he’ll be in a few years, as he’s obviously a late-bloomer who is only getting better by the day.

From DraftExpress.com [Only registered and activated users can see links. ][Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

And please stop with Earl Barron. He had a nice run at the end of last year but he's not getting resigned and will be lucky to show up in the league again.

Why? Barron proved he can play in this system and have an effective 10-15 minutes off the bench. This guy is totally unproven in the NBA and were giving up 3 million of next years cap to have him. He's intriguing yes but is he worth the risk? Who knows.

It's funny though, how before FA started we were all wondering how we were even going to fill 13 roster spots with NBA ready players. Now look at our roster...

We actually have 9-10 players already who are NBA proven and 4-5 players who will be hungry for playing time. This could be a good thing to get everyone to work harder on their game and really try to prove themselves. Hopefully it doesn't go the other way where D'antoni tries out 5 different rotations before settling on one and making us inconsistent.